The in-situ delivery of therapeutic agents within the body of a patient is common in the practice of modern medicine. In-situ delivery of therapeutic agents is often implemented using medical devices that may be temporarily or permanently placed at a target site within the body. These medical devices can be maintained, as required, at their target sites for short or prolonged periods of time, in order to deliver therapeutic agents to the target site.
For example, in recent years, drug eluting coronary stents, which are commercially available from Boston Scientific Corp. (TAXUS and PROMUS), Johnson & Johnson (CYPHER) and others, have been widely used for maintaining vessel patency after balloon angioplasty. These products are based on metallic expandable stents with polymer coatings that release anti-restenotic drugs at a controlled rate and total dose.
Therapeutic agents have also been delivered to vessel walls using balloons. For example, there have been clinical trials showing that in-stent restenosis can be treated using a balloon having a sprayed coating of pure paclitaxel.